The ability to maintain one's balance is critical to sports performance and every day living. There are a number of different ways that humans naturally maintain their balance.
There are three main modes of balance correction employed by humans. For simplicity of explanation, all examples here are for a static standing mode. Rotational acceleration of body mass is used for angular attitude correction. In this mode of balance correction, rotational arm swing acceleration is most commonly used to cause a rotational acceleration of the body in the opposite direction. CG (Center of Gravity) correction is used to move the CG over top of the desired CF (Center of Force). This is commonly accomplished naturally by humans at low disturbance levels by moving the hips horizontally to keep the CG as directly over the preferred CF as possible. Platform correction is used to keep the preferred CF under the CG without necessarily moving the CG. At high disturbance levels, this can involve taking a step forward or backward or sideways to move the platform back under the user's displaced CG to “catch one's balance.” At low disturbance levels, simply changing the CF of the foot contact area is all that is necessary to keep the CF as close as possible to below the CG. This can be accomplished by applying more pressure to the toes or the heels or one or the other sides of the foot.
Various combinations of these modes can be used at the same time. CG correction is the most natural method of balance correction and requires low amounts of energy. It is, however, not the ideal mode of balance correction for many sport activities because it requires movement of the upper or entire body system which can affect the precision of the movement and power transfer through the upper body.